So after a year of flying a Diatone Blade 250 on 3s (recently rebuilt using QAV210 Frame), I would like to build something more up to date and a bit special.  This is also a little birthday pressie to myself, much to my girlfriend's amusement lol. 

Have only assembled the frame and mounted motors, and spent the last half hour figuring out where to run the battery cable - the 4s Tattu's I bought have really short stiff battery leads compared to the 3s Dronelabs i'm used to.  Think straight out the back is best, what do you think?

Will keep you all posted and any advice greatly appreciated.  I think this thing will be a beast so looking forward to getting her in the air.  When I was younger I bought a GSXR600 coming up from much smaller bikes - I think this may be a similar experience....

Parts:
Armattan Chameleon 5"
Emax 2306/2400kv
Betaflight F3
DYS XSD30 v2
FrSky XSR
Runcam RRE
TBS Unify Pro HV
TBS Triumph Stubby
Tattu 1550 4s 75C

I've bought a selection of props to go with this to see what feels good.  DAL Cyclone 5046 & Racekraft 5051, DAL 5045 and 5040 which I use on the QAV.

I have to say the hardest bit so far has been getting the parts here in the UK.  I had the motors ages ago on pre-order, but finding the other bits has been a challenge.  The FC and vtx were really hard, all UK drone stores out of stock for a while but they came good in the end. Got the frame direct from Armattan - took about 10 working days which I think is great.




hendrixhughes

Looking forward to see your progress, keep the pics coming.

With the Betaflight F3 flight controller, you're pretty much stuck with having the battery lead running out of the rear of the craft. I was also forced into the same placement on my Chameleon build and to make sure there was no chance of the power leads coming in contact with the propellers, I ended up having to secure the power lead to the rear standoff with a heavy tie wrap.



It's still a little close for comfort! I also wrapped the power wires in some robust foam to prevent the tie wrap from cutting into the soft silicone insulation on the wires over time. A better solution would be to design and print a mount for the XT60 connector, but once you've added the antennas for the receiver and VTX, space is pretty limited at the rear.

The ideal placement for the battery connector is out of the side of the frame on the PDB as shown in Armattan's pictures on their web site, but that's not always possible.

You have a great set of parts there. They will give you superb performance and I can promise you that compared to your current 3S quad, the difference will be quite shocking!

So a bit of lunchtime/afternoon building.  Took the clear shrink of the ESCs to get the wires off so I could get them onto the FC:




Getting everything in place to check:



Then off again to add the cap on the power leads (nearly forgot I had it in the draw lol).  Heat shrink and done.  Tested all continuity was good and plugged her in.



Flashing the FC was a bit of a ballache, but got there in the end.  ESCs flashed with 16.65 and all working well in the motors tab.  The motor sound is weird compared to my old gal with the Emax 2204/2300 and DYS 20A oneshot125.  Selected Dshot 600 in Betaflight config not sure this is the reason???  Will be adding receiver and FPV gear later....

hendrixhughes

Looking good!

I'm running these motors on my SwiftBlade build with some RacerStar 30A BLHeli_S ESCs and running Multishot. When they start to spin, they're almost silent but I did notice an almost metallic sounding click from them on spooling down. Is that what you mean by a weird sound?

(04-May-2017, 04:56 PM)unseen Wrote: Looking good!

I'm running these motors on my SwiftBlade build with some RacerStar 30A BLHeli_S ESCs and running Multishot. When they start to spin, they're almost silent but I did notice an almost metallic sounding click from them on spooling down. Is that what you mean by a weird sound?

Cheers!

No it's a very high pitched sound - probably what they're supposed to sound like, just not like my old quad.  This is just running the motors up a little on the bench no props.

Ah, if it's really high pitched, I'm too old to hear it!

(04-May-2017, 05:53 PM)unseen Wrote: Ah, if it's really high pitched, I'm too old to hear it!

Should be for me too with all the years playing in a loud band haha

I think it's just what they're supposed to do just quite different from what the old ones do.  Can't wait to get this in the air....

So after spending a couple of days scratching my head trying to bind the rx lol, I have finished the build!!  Big thanks to all who helped with the rx issues (incorrect firmware in tx even though I was 99% certain I had it right haha).

Getting the Unify and antenna mounted:



and finished:






Got everything configured in BF, tested failsafe etc and took to the garden to gently hover and fly LOS for a battery - just making sure everything OK.  Wow so smooth and responsive.

Went to the park for a maiden FPV flight but as we have amazing weather here in Manchester today it was far too busy.  Found a nice quiet spot in town where they demolished some tower block and its just wasteland at the moment.

Pre-flight check, googles on and holy s**t!!!!  This thing is a beast!!!!!  Coming from a 3s setup to this on 4s is incredible.  Seems to be flying well on default BF, but some high freq oscillations when punching the throttle.  Think this will be pretty easy to tune out - I'll be checking the logs later.  I've not soft mounted anything on this build, apart from the O rings Armattan sent with the frame for the stand offs.  Hoping that I can keep it this way.  I'll get some DVR footage up in a bit.

Thank you all for your help

hendrixhughes

Beautiful job on the build!

Maiden flight:

That's a very neat and tidy build. Nice one!

The Chameleon does fly rather well, as your video clearly shows.